The Birth of Deidara
by laydee-jiraya
Summary: How does a bomber for the Akatsuki get his start? Why is he bombing his own country, and what are his motives? Read on to find out! Incomplete, probably won't write more of this.
1. Chapter 1: You Piss Me Off!

"You piss me off

"You piss me off!" Deidara screamed, and kicked the shadowy figure that stood in the archway, very hard, in the crotch. The boy doubled over with a yell, clutching his manhood and gritting his teeth. Deidara stood there with crossed arms and a small smirk across thin, pretty lips. One eye was hidden by a curtain of blond bangs, but the other was a beautiful sea-green with long lashes and a hint of amusement at the corner.

"You tease! You slut!" the boy called out in fury. "How can a girl kick so hard?!"

"All I did was ask you the time, yeah! How is that being a slut, hmm?" By now a large group of kids had gathered around the scene, observing in shock the strange altercation going on in their school courtyard. There was Torashi the pervert, curled up in a fetal position and grabbing his balls; this was typical, because Torashi did something to infuriate one girl or another just about every day. But the other half of this was someone new.

"That's just indecent!" one of the girls whispered to another. "What does she expect, going around in a shirt like that!"

"OH YEAH?!" the other boy shouted. "Look at that fishnet shirt you're wearing! You're flat-chested, sure," he grinned, "but you won't get away with that for long. I can see your nipples!" Deidara looked furious, and all the girls thought for sure that this new girl would stalk off in embarrassment, which would serve her right for thinking that suited the dress-code.

"YOU IDIOT! I'M A GUY, HMM!" The crowd looked on in shock, both at the fact that this was a guy, and also at the horrible look on Torashi's face.

"If you're a guy. Then there's no problem if I beat you up. C'mon, your best ninjutsu against mine." The boy with the long blond ponytail and long blond bangs swept to one side looked terrified and turned white at the challenge.

"I . . . I can't . . . class is about to start . . . some other time, maybe . . ." he insisted.

"Class isn't about to start. I never did tell you what time it was. We've got a half-hour. I've got all day. I don't have a last-period."

"Hmm," Deidara said nervously.

"GORAKI NO JUTSU!" the boy shouted, and summoned a ball of gold.

"You sure do like balls," Deidara teased, a look of fear still pinned on his face. Suddenly the ball broke into segments, and the segments began to grow, forming a golden metal golem with glowing eyes, towering at eight feet in the courtyard. Deidara was trapped, he had the joining of two brick walls behind him and the golem in front, glowing from its loose joints and wincing eyes.

"Summon something, you idiot!" one of the girls from the crowd of on-lookers shouted.

I'm not supposed to do this, Deidara thought painfully, but raised his hands to make a sign.

Torashi moved his arm so that it swung through the air, and the golem's did the same, punching the brick wall above Deidara's head in a threatening manner and breaking some of the bricks. The dust settled down around him, as he put out his fists, then held up his fingers, his eyes looking away with cowardice.

"I give," he said.

"What? What the hell?!" Torashi demanded. In disgust he canceled his summoning and stalked off. Everybody else was looking disgusted at this new boy, too. Well, at least they didn't know who he was yet.

Deidara was not followed, and he was glad, as he headed off to his last class. It was sculpture, something he was not good at, but then again, he was not good at anything, really. That was why he had given in during the fight. There were no summons that he knew, and his body was sickly and weak, too weak to do any adequate taijutsu. He didn't want them to know that. It was better to be thought a coward and a quitter. He didn't know what time it was, but the sun hung low and turned to amber, then to the color inside a persimmon. There were no bells to tell students when to go to class, because the Ninja Academy of the Arts was a target for Iwagakure's enemies. It was shrouded in spells to hide it in plain sight, making it look like an abandoned warehouse, but any loud sounds would escape past it to the ears of anyone standing nearby. Deidara felt lifeless as he climed steps to the classroom, only to find it locked with nobody inside. Instead, he sat down, and decided to try his favorite hobby: pretending that he didn't exist. It was easy enough at first, blending into space and the air around him. He wondered if that was what happened when you died, if you just became a part of the sky. He wanted to be a part of the clouds; their white forms becoming the shapes of creatures to an imaginative eye. He could almost feel that feeling, of air swooping about him in the sky, when something always reminded him that he did exist: the quickening of his heartbeat to a rise of sounds in the air, or his eyes would move when something caught their attention, or, more often than not, someone would come and bother him and let him know full well that he was both visible and unwanted. He wondered what it was like, not existing.

It was quiet footsteps this time. They alerted his ears, which alerted his brain, which whispered to him to get up, to look alive. He stood, and then immediately bowed when he saw that this person was older than he was; probably the teacher. "Ah, another new student," the kindly woman said, and smiled. She was probably in her thirties, with long, wavy hair, tawny with a golden glow, but not much taller than Deidara was at his tender fourteen years. "I'm Hokato Bebishi. Who might you be?"

"Deidara. Koromai Deidara," he said, still bowed, his gloved hands clasped together. The teacher unlocked the door with a click. She was still smiling, even though the light reflected in her glasses so he could not see her eyes.

"Well, Deidara, you're a young man who knows how to be early!" she said, and walked inside without another word. She strode the length of the classroom until she got to the back, where she put down her bag and sat, looking through some scrolls. Deidara smiled a little, shyly. Ah, so she could tell.

"Where should I sit, ma'am?" he asked cautiously when she looked in his direction.

"Oh, wherever you like!" she smiled. She had a warm smile. He chose a desk, near the middle row. "You're Tsuchikage's son, aren't you?" she asked.

"Yes, ma'am."

"It'll be interesting, having you in class," she said, and looked slightly troubled. Deidara returned her troubled look back.

Soon students began pouring in the door; almost all the desks were filled, but no one wanted to sit next to Deidara, because just about everyone had heard about him backing off in what could have been an awesome fight earlier, and they didn't want to sit next to someone they couldn't tell the sex of besides. The class was very basic, just like the rest, and they learned to shape clay with their chakra, only into small people, and then how to animate them so that they walked across the table next to the teacher. Bebishi-sensei was pleased with everyone's attempts: everyone except for Deidara, who seemed to have an affinity for dropping, fumbling, breaking, or squashing his clay person at every chance he got. In the end it was nothing but a dirty-looking blob.

"It would help if you took off those stupid gloves," the girl closest to him said peevishly.

"I cant," he said weakly. "My hands are injured, they have to stay on."

"No wonder you can't form the clay right," she scoffed. "Here, let me help you out." The girl walked over. She had kind eyes masked in irritance, eyes which were a strange shade of blue closer to white, and her hair was an awkward shade for anyone but a crone: silver, and half in a spiky ponytail, which stuck straight up. She, too, seemed incapable of keeping her bangs out of her eyes as she worked the clay with agile fingers until it was in a single solid ball. "Now, put your hands on it, and I'll show you how to move them," she instructed. Deidara did as she asked, and blushed as her hands closed around his, working the clay with his fingers and making them move in directions different from all the directions he had tried. "There, you see?" she said, as Deidara stared in awe at the figure in his hands. "It's not so hard to shape it. What's hard is controlling your chakra to make it move. I still can't do that, but they're doing an extra class for those of us who can't."

"Th-thank you," Deidara stammered. "Yeah."

"I'm Hyuuga Soma," she said, and without another word, went diligently back to her own work. Deidara set the clay down on the table and tried to summon some chakra to control it, but for some reason it was very erratic when it came out of his fingers, the way it always had been, and nothing happened with the small clay person. He stayed after hours working on it, until in a final burst of chakra, the thing exploded. He sat down in his chair and started crying, because there was nothing he could do. His fate was going to be the fate of his sister. It wouldn't have been so bad, if he were from any clan but his own. The darkness closed in, and he went impatiently home to the headquarters of the government, saluting the guards at the gate. His parents were busy entertaining foreigners, so he lay in his bed, surrounded by wealth and opulence, and tried forming a clay person like Soma had showed him. But his fingers were too weak, their tendons formed in the wrong places because of, those things. He turned over and took off his gloves, then went to sleep.

Fall came and went, and each day Deidara got a little worse. He seemed to be regressing very fast, as much as Soma tried to teach him how to do not only clay work but drawing. Soma herself was getting better, and had become his closest friend, although Bebishi-sensei was also very kind to him, and had the two of them over for dinner some nights. After dinner were chakra-controlling lessons, like walking across the top of the pond in her back yard, something which only Soma could do. Deidara wound up wet every time he tried it, which everyone found funny but him.

"I've decided to try a technique that is used in many other countries and villages," Bebishi said one night, as they sat down after being shown in. "We're going to form a three-man team, with me as leader, and go on missions, as soon as summer break sets in. You two of course will be on the team, and the third member will be," she said with anticipation, opening the door to the kitchen, "MY NEPHEW TORASHI!" A beefy-looking boy with a pug nose and short black hair walked through the door, looking tall and angry.

"AAAAHHHHHH!" Deidara shouted.

"AAAAHHHHHH!" Torashi bellowed.

"Oh so you two know each other! How nice," Bebishi smiled.

"No way! No way in hell I'm working with him, yeah!"

"What?! The trannie?! Hell no obaa-san, I'm not--"

"Who are you calling a trannie?! MAN GROPER!"

"I didn't grope you knowing you were a man!"

"You still groped a man, hmm!"

"Shut up, shut up! Stop reminding me about it, before I kill you!"

"You wanna fight?!" Deidara demanded.

"Why, you don't!" Deidara kicked him in the balls again. "ARGH!" Torashi screamed, and began summoning chakra in his hand.

"ENOUGH!" Bebishi shouted, and summoned an air current which beat the two boys away from each other and into the walls behind them. "You will learn to work together! Soma! You're the only sane one here, so you are group-leader."

"Aye!" Soma announced enthusiastically, and saluted.

"What? You made a girl the leader?!" Torashi wanted to know.

"Shut up, she's better than you are, yeah!" Deidara scoffed.

"Actually," Bebishi said, "Torashi is the strongest. But he's too hot-headed. Soma is calm, and can think clearly under stress. You two are to meet me back here the last night of school," she said calmly. "And then, you will get your first mission." The three of them were finally united in one thing, and that was that they all smiled a bit at the thought of this. That was two weeks from now.

Deidara walked home, feeling happy for once at the thought of being on an actual team, and wondering what it would be like to spend more time with Soma-chan. Then thoughts of Torashi drove him to fury. "Chikusho!" he griped to himself. Light footsteps came up behind him.

"Dei-chan," Soma said, coming up behind him like a ghost. She looked like one, too. "What's wrong?"

"That stupid Torashi, who does the think he is? He really pisses me off!"

"Don't worry about him, he's got talent, but you can beat him with hard work!"

"Soma," Deidara said softly in the darkness. "Thanks."

"For what?" she asked.

"For standing by me."

"Oh . . . you're welcome," she said quietly. "Deidara," she said, "I've been thinking . . ."

"What about?" he asked, with hushed breath, hoping this was going to be words he'd been longing to hear.

"It's just, what exactly, is wrong with your hands? Can I see them without the gloves?" Deidara stopped walking and stood frozen.

"No, I--you wouldn't want to--"

"My mother specializes in medical jutsu, and she taught me some. Can I take a look?"

"I don't want to scare you, Soma," he panicked. "Please don't ask--please don't--" Soma looked at him quietly. "I could never be scared of you, Deidara-kun," she said quietly.

"Do you trust me?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Then trust me on this. You don't want to know . . . what I am . . ."

"Well then . . . at least let me use Byakugan," she asked. "So I can see what's wrong with your chakra." He looked concerned.

". . . Alright," he said at last. In the darkness her eyes seemed to become veiny and bulged, glowing with an strange incandesence as she searched his body rapidly. In the dark she saw lines form, blue lines connected to points of blue fire, the pathways through which chakra flows. In a normal body, they ran in even numbers from the solar plexis to the limbs and head, radiating outwards and coming back in circular loops to their point of origin--but in most of Deidara's body, there were almost no chakra pathways at all--instead they localized about the solar plexis, near his chest, where there was a strong density of chakra, as if something was slowly forming there. Thick ropes of chakra ran from this central point down his arms, coming through his wrists, so then why couldn't he form the clay with his chakra? Then her eyes came to his hands. She picked one of them up with tensed fingers and examined it. Her eyes were lit like a blind person's in the darkness, and as she stared so closely at his hand, looking at things no one else could see, the effect was indeed of someone blind. There were the pathways, leading through his wrist, but instead of going to his fingers, most of them diverted, veered off and took a different course than she had ever seen, leading to his palms alone. In each palm was a collection of blue light so dense and controlled that she wondered what it could possibly mean. She blinked once, and her eyes were back to their normal, shiny spheres.

"What is in your palm?" she asked.

"Why?"

"Because that's where all your chakra control is."

"Soma . . . what do you think of mutations?" he asked, as they began to walk again in the darkness.

"I think it's unfortunate for the person it happens to, sometimes fortunate. I am not afraid of them."

". . ."

"Please, let me see your palm." He took off his glove slowly, then with a swish of his hand, turned it over and showed her what she had wanted to see. There was a mouth in his palm, stitched-up, and Soma recoiled a bit. Deidara retracted his hand.

"I'm sorry, Soma, I told you you wouldn't want to see--" she grabbed his hand before he could put the glove back on.

"No! I want to know why it's sewn up!"

"Because it's not supposed to be there . . . it's not what . . . not what the clan wanted me to have . . . I was born a mutation, Soma. The Korashi clan . . . has a dark past, and a dark future . . . inbreeding, to select specific traits, to keep our family strong . . . but sometimes strange things have popped up and, they have been dealth with." He looked dark and troubled, as the phantom sound of his sister's screams radiated through his head. Quickly Soma took out her kunai and cut the chakra threads, then pulled them out with a slight stinging sensation. The mouth opened, just slightly.

"Mutation or not, you are who you are. And I bet your other palm has one, too. How could they do this to you?" she asked in horror. "These mouths are your source of power, and they've blocked them off, just because it isn't how most people . . . Deidara, I'm so sorry," she said quietly, and kissed him. He looked softly at her in the faint moonlight.

"Thank you," he said. "Soma-chan."

. . .


	2. Chapter 2: Clay and Fire

That night, two genins went in opposite directions with heat rising in their cheeks, one going east and one going west but the

That night, two genins went in opposite directions with heat rising in their cheeks, one going east and one going west but their minds staying on what had just been their first kiss. Soma went home to the only family she knew, her mother, Hyuuga Nara and her father, Abusashe Asuko. She was not certain of why her mother had come from the land of fire, so far north to Iwa, nor would she ever know.

Deidara was certain of why his family were here; they had been here for centuries as the all-powerful summoners of clay and painted creatures. They hosted a variety of bloodline limits, but the most prevalent was Koshida, the ability to throw thin strings of chakra from your fingertips, attach them to inanimate objects, and control them. Supposedly, the Aurogas, puppeteers in Sunagakure, were an off-branch of the Korashi, and from this speculation alone the two villages were natural enemies. In other villages the kage was chosen as the strongest ninja in the village, but in Iwagakure things were different: the first-born Korashi became the Tsuchikage, an almost-royal lineage that had for ages gone unopposed simply because of their powerful techniques: and it seemed with each generation that the total power of these techniques increased. That is, until recently.

Sonaida, the seat of government and age-old home of the Korashi clan, was lit by torches, candles and mirrors reflecting their light, loyal guards standing on the artistically curved and swirled rooftops in a fashion that spoke more of paranoia than of might: in the past, they had never kept an all-night watch.

"Deidara-sama, why are you out so late?" the lead ninja demanded, looking down with one good eye. The other was replaced by a long slash of a scar, and it looked horrible in the pale moonlight.

"I was training," Deidara snapped. "Let me by, jerk!"

"Alright, but the Tsuchikage will be told about this," the ninja said, and resumed his post. Two stories of steps lead up to the main entry, and even taller, thinner series of steps lead directly to individual rooms on the higher floors. Deidara took one of those, feeling annoyed at the amount of steps he seemed to have been climbing all his life, and slammed his chamber door at the thought of this. He really wished they would invent a pulley system.

So this is where my power lies, he thought, stretched out on the bed that night as he looked some more at the mouths in his palms. He touched the lips of the one in his right hand and it opened, revealing two neat rows of teeth and a tongue slightly longer than normal. He wondered how far back it went, and what it connected to. This is the source of my power, he thought. He took a packet of clay out of his school things and broke off a small piece, then experimentally put it in the mouth, squeamish at this foreign part of himself like someone trying masturbation for the first time. He thought on this similarity of circumstances, and turned beet red. This was lame. This was hopeless. He opened his palm to let the bit of clay out: and from it came the image of a small person, doubled over and doing something with--he turned even redder still.

So whatever I'm thinking about . . . it forms, he said, wincing at what he'd just created. He wadded the wanking man up into a formless ball of clay again, lest anyone see the evidence of his first attempt at sculpture. Then he smiled a little. He had actually made something. He put the clay back in again, and this time pictured a white bird, flying through the clouds, and then his mind went to being one with the clouds himself, the rush of air, and soaring. His palm opened, and from it sprang a flying creature that shot into the air, circled once, and went out the window. He had seen it just long enough to glimpse the curved form of feathers and a short beak. At once he got up and ran to the window, looking outside for any sign of the little clay creature. He didn't see it until he looked down, and his eyes went wide at the change in size. It was now as big as a small dog, and with a thrust of its wings it got even bigger, the size of a horse, then an elephant, growing rapidly in spurts. It hovered there, looking at him as if waiting for something.

"Oh . . . do you want me to ride you?" Deidara asked shyly. The bird nodded silently. The art of it was exquisite, the lines and symmetry, the smoothness and perfect form. It was the most beautiful thing Deidara had ever seen, as it slowly fl.apped its wings, somehow staying aloft in spite of its huge size, a lack of upcurrent, and its stationary position: it was kept from the prison of gravity by Deidara's own desire alone. This was what art is, he thought, and stepped lightly onto the clay beast's back.

Clouds and sky zoomed dizzyingly towards him as the ground lurched away, but he was unafraid as the cold wind cut across his face: because Deidara finally knew what it was like to be one with the sky, and it felt so good it hurt. The twinkling stars seemed to share in his joy and freedom; it was the freest he had ever felt in his life as the clay bird swooped through the sky, once around Iwa, and back to Sonaida.

Suddenly, something glowing like flame came shooting from the ground below and struck his creation in the wing. Flames lapped at the smooth clay body and Deidara screamed in terror as the thing exploded, in the middle of the air, sending him bruised and cut-up to the ground below amongst sparks and flaming pieces of clay. It was like being in the middle of a fireworks display, and the last thoughts Deidara had were, that this was truly beautiful. His clay had been fired at last, not in a kiln, but by an explosive rocket fired from a bazooka: and somehow, in being destroyed, was complete. He hit the ground with a hollow thud and passed out.

. . .


	3. Chapter 3: Birth Defect

"We must

"We must . . ." someone was saying, with soft, mumbling words.

"We're still not sure that's what he did," another voice came, closer and clearer. Deidara's eyes flitted open to find himself in a white room, with a medic nin staring into his face. Behind the ninja stood the Tsuchikage. As usual a mask was pulled over the lower half of his face, so that Deidara could only see his father's eyes, and he could not bring himself to recall what the rest of of his father looked like. It had been many years since he took up the title and began dressing like the "earth shadow" was supposed to: masked, in loose dark clothes and white robes, and with eyes painted from colored clay. He seemed interested in what the medic was doing, while behind him Deidara's cousin and uncle whispered quietly as they stood on the balcony. It was sunrise.

"Dad?" Deidara asked. He sat up, his hair down and falling in thin, messy strands at his shoulders. His shirt was off, and lines of chakra were flowing into his chest as the medic nin took some notes with his free hand. His father did not acknowledge him.

"Lay back down," the medic nin advised. "We're almost done with the tests." Deidara looked sullen and crossed his arms, creating more density for the chakra to have to work through. "Ah, stubborn I see," the medic nin commented, and tapped him lightly on the forehead. All at once he became paralyzed, and fell screaming back onto the bed, unable to control his fall.

"What the hell did you do that for?!" he wanted to know. But the ninja only cut off the chakra threads and walked away, talking to his father. His cousin and uncle followed, and nobody said a word to him to even admit he was there. In a few seconds the paralysis passed, feeling coming back to his limbs and body like the stinging pin-pricks of an arm that has been asleep. He sat up and stretched, then caught sight of one of his hands. It had small holes poked all around the mouth in a circle, as if they had been connected to tubes--as if they'd been testing something. "HEY! HEY WAIT!" Deidara shouted, springing out of bed and running after. "What is this?! What did you guys do?!" he demanded of his father and the medic nin.

"We tested your chakra, to see how you could possibly have made that flying creature," the medic nin said. "From what we've found, it seems you've broken your oath to your father." Deidara recalled the oath that both he and his sister had taken, to never touch or even admit the existence of their mutations, as they were unclean and broke the rightful lineage of power. They had been seven and five when that oath was taken, and one year later was when they had attempted that . . . procedure . . . on her. She had died the next day.

"Oh yeah?!" he shouted. "Well I didn't know that was my only way to get power, when I made that oath, yeah!"

"Deidara, stop your incessant gutter-talk, throwing in explicatives that don't belong," his father said angrily, his head turned to look at Deidara but his back still facing him. Then he turned fully around, and the group walked off, Deidara standing there looking lost.

That day in class he was depressed, because his father was right--even if he could make things from the mouthes in his hands, it did no good, because what would people think if they saw him doing that in class? He didn't even touch pen to paper or clay to floor, he just sat there, during each session, and watched the second-hand tick by. It was finals.

"Deidara, you know I have to fail you," Bebishi said sadly. "I wish you'd at least tried something this last day. Maybe I could have given you some points."

"Why should I care?" Deidara said sullenly. "Art is the most beautiful thing in the world, yeah. Art is a bang. And I'm forbidden to do it."

"Forbidden?" Bebishi asked quietly. "That's an odd word to use."

"Let me show you something," he said. "Don't scream." She looked oddly at him, and nodded. He slipped the glove from his hand, the palm facing down, and picked up a piece of clay. He seemed to put the clay into his palm somehow, because it didn't drop when his other hand came to rest at his side. Then he flipped his hand over, and there sat a small, perfect clay grasshopper, resting on a longer-than-normal tongue, which came out of a mouth, which rested in the palm of his hand. The grasshopper flew off on insect wings, and the tongue retracted. "You see? That's the only way I can make art. And I can't do it." He looked down, his eyes shrouded in darkness behind his bangs so that it was impossible to tell what emotion they carried. He walked to the window, and looked out at the amber sunset, and the kids walking home from class, tiny black silhouettes on the ground below. Bebishi looked troubled.

"It is odd," she admitted. "But that was a perfect clay jutsu."

"What does it matter? I'm a mutation. A birth defect." His eyes were still in shadow, but tears were running down his cheeks.

"So? There are lots of odd bloodline-limits." She stood by him at the window.

"I was supposed to have one. Koshida. But as the generations went down, and kids in my family were bred for it, the chakra threads got denser. They got more powerful. And then in me, the chakra was too powerful . . . it clumped together and didn't extend to the fingers, and, these mouthes formed instead. My sister had it too. My family was disgusted by it. They did this thing to my sister, where they cut the mouthes out, and tried to re-route her chakra. They slit her arms and chest open, to get to the chakra pathways. She . . . bled to death."

Bebishi looked horrified. "Surely they must've known she could die from that?!"

"They did. They thought if they couldn't fix her, death was better."

"Are they going to do that to you?"

"They haven't told me. But I think so."

"Deidara. Tonight when we leave on our mission, I want you to escape Iwa. Become a missing nin if you must. I'll help you." He looked up, and his blue-green eyes were bloodshot with tears.

"Thank you, Bebishi-sensei," he sobbed, and squeezed her in a tight hug. She smiled painfully.

"Deidara, you're crushing my boobs," she said. Deidara looked embarrassed and let go of her rather quickly, then they both snickered.

"Things are going to be okay for you, I can tell," Bebishi said. "You've got a lot of talent."

"Yeah," Deidara said.

. . .


End file.
